This is five week old news now, but I’ve wanted to put my two cents in for a while.
Walt Disney Co. on Wednesday became the first major Hollywood studio to ban depictions of smoking, saying there would be no smoking in its family-oriented, Disney-branded films and it would “discourage” it in films distributed by its Touchstone and Miramax labels.
Disney Chief Executive Robert Iger also said in a letter to U.S. Rep. Edward Markey, whose committee last month held hearings on the effects of movie images on children, that the studio would place anti-smoking public service announcements on DVDs of any future films that feature cigarette smoking.
He said the company would encourage theater owners to screen anti-smoking public service announcements, or PSAs, before such films.
Iger cautioned that “cigarette smoking is a unique problem and this PSA effort is not a precedent for any other issue.”
Markey described Disney’s commitment as “groundbreaking” and urged other studios to follow suit.
Dr. Cheryl Healton, president and CEO of the American Legacy Foundation, commended Disney’s move but said the studio left “some ambiguity about what would happen in relation to Touchstone and Miramax.”
1) Censorship never solved a damned thing. This is the kind of knee-jerk political correctness that pretends to address an issue by eliminating it from the discourse. There’s nothing too offensive about taking a stand and discouraging the glamorization of smoking and perhaps working with filmmakers on the issue. This, however, is just downright obscene, and simply tramples over the filmmaker’s discretion. This decision apparently would even forbid negative portrayals of smoking from Disney’s “family-oriented” films (no idea whether that classification is what the MPAA might consider appropriate for a family or what Disney’s marketing department would say). Hell, it would even eliminate smoking from period films. Just try to make sense of that.
2) The MPAA has already announced it will be taking smoking into account when giving films ratings. How far is the industry going to go with this? I can see the slippery slope already. We have a ratings system in placed that revolves around people under the legal age required to purchase cigarettes. The highest rating in use is NC-17, which keeps out anyone under 17 years. You have to be 18 in the United States to buy cigarettes. Combine those two points and we have a situation where people can legitimately argue that virtually every single film on the market is exposing the under-aged to smoking. I’ve never known any of these pro-censorship issues groups to use restraint or decide to give human intelligence any credit, so I can only foresee future efforts to remove smoking from even R-rated films, especially after a lobbying success like this one.
It’s so continuously depressing that America is stuck with a film industry that institutionally dismisses adults and consequently, a lot of maturity and intelligence. Everything has to revolve around being appropriate for either thirteen or seventeen year olds. It’s not even as if I’m for smoking in films. It’s just silly and obscene to ban it, and a blanket ban at that.
I think what I find most interesting about your argument here (Which I agree with) is the following:
“It’s not even as if I’m for smoking in films.”
Because really, that’s the thing: is there anyone out there, outside of “big tobacco”, REALLY “for” smoking in films?
This kind of blanket censorshipassumes that any use of tobacco within a film is labeled as “supporting” of kids killing their lungs; legitimate uses (Period films, Films Directed at Adults) are bring lumped in with cigarettes in films designed for children, even if it’s only a “suggestion” to Miramax/Touchstone.
I think that Mad Men, AMC’s new drama series, is an example of a place where due to its setting in the 1960s, everyone smokes. Does it make me want to start smoking? No. It makes me ask questions about the society in which the show takes place, and as a result draws me into the series. I’d hate to lose that because of overzealous studio execs making the decision for me.